My Conspiracy Theory proved correct - Foreclosures Resume - and Should earmark funds be used to re-initiate the home buyer tax credits?

Thank you so much for your comments and tweets about my last couple of posts. I'm sorry I've been away the past couple of weeks but had some family health issues to work through. It actually allowed me to watch the news a little more than normal which helped prompt me to discuss what I detail below. There have been some really interesting events affecting the real estate market over the past couple of weeks that could have major impact in 2011. You might recall my post a few weeks back regarding my belief that the foreclosure moratorium was merely a political ploy for candidates running for office and that they'd resume shortly after the holidays. Well It looks like I was right! Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sent info this week to agents handling their REO properties to put them back on the market. I'm shocked they didn't wait until the holidays were over BUT they did indicate that evictions and lockouts would not yet resume, which as I've said before is consistent with what they do every year. I strongly believed this was just as much politicking as it was about checking out "robo signing" and I think this helps support that point. Its hopeful this inventory will help end the year on a strong note for real estate markets across the country since many deal hungry buyers have been fence sitting since the announcement afraid that the "deal" they've been waiting for is in bank review land. The other tidbit of news affecting the real estate world this week is Florida's Democratic Senator Bill Nelson announcing a plan to use earmark funds in order to re-initiate the home buyer tax credits so popular in my industry earlier in the year. It appears Republicans have pushed strongly in the other direction against Senator Nelson's proposal. Many in my industry are arguing to bring back the credit because we believe it DID help the real estate market by motivating the fence sitting buyers who are afraid the market will get worse or that they don't have enough money in the bank to cover repairs on the distressed properties which are the majority of the market (at least in the Sunshine State). I agree with Senator Nelson that the tax credits did help. However, as a fiscal conservative I don't see how continuing to throw money at the problem and risk the same folks we didn't want to buy houses, because they probably couldn't afford them, starting the foreclosure domino effect all over again. I think the first round of credits did enough to get things moving but we can't just keep throwing money at buyers to get them to take action. How about some more education to help people understand the benefit of home ownership or the financial pluses? The current administration seems deadset on handing out checks to people thinking its the cure all. I loved the tax credit for my industry. It helped my business in the short term. In the long term, earmark money or not, we are writing checks that we can't cash. Our country can't keep piling up this deficit and expect to ever turn the economy around. You can't keep throwing money at the problem! Home affordability is considerably better than it was when the credits first started because of the drop in interest rates. How about we spend some time and energy promoting that and let people that SHOULD be buying homes buy them, instead of promoting people buying homes because they can get some free government money and then default in a year. I am always a proponent of things that can help the real estate industry and there may be a solution in which some sort of incentives can be used to incentivize home buyers or sellers - I'm just not on board with Senator Nelson's proposal and hope the folks in Washington can get on the same page to focus on doing more than just throwing money at problems. Andrew Duncan is President/CEO of the #1 Keller Williams Real Estate Team in Tampa Bay, Florida - The Duncan Duo & Associates. He can be reached at info@theduncanduo.com or by visiting his Tampa Real Estate Blog